Wednesday, 18 January 2012

OK. I'm knackered from my new job, but I played with some rule ideas of Christmas and this is what I came up with. I don't have the same guys around to argue it with, so feel free to kick the tyres.

I have a bunch of principles that basically run along the ideas of keeping it idiot friendly (I'm the idiot in this example; I hate having to remember more than a couple of numbers at a time), easy to grasp but very flexible in the long term.

Oh yeah, and rules should support play and setting. You'll see what I mean with the virtue/vice thing.

Characters
and character generation:

At this point rewards can change, but the basic system is predicated on using Drama points as currency. You gain them by playing to their sins (and creating drama) and spend them on boosting your stat+skill test result. Wyrd points are more powerful Drama Points.Of course, all of this is unstable - it only lasts until I think of better ideas.

Each
character begins with named traits.

Destiny

Your destiny is your ultimate goal and
should be suitably epic; if you are uncertain, or new, ask the ST to create
one for you, with some input.

The
reward for advancing your destiny is to receive Wyrd point(s).

Passions
(5)

Passions are your smaller objectives;
anything from the political ('become
renowned at duelling') to the personal ('woo the lady Serafina').

The
player gains XP for advancing their Passions.
They also gain a one-off payment of XP upon completion of their
Passion. Passions are basically goals and exist on top of the GM-inspired plots. A little player power in defining what they want to do and getting a reward for it.

Strength

The character has taken one of the
Seven Virtues to heart (see table).

The
player may take a bonus based on ½ their Spirit stat at a critical juncture in their Task. Not sure about the reward on this one, but I like teh idea of a temporary buff for doing something like that.

Sin

The character is prey to one of the
Seven Sins (see table).

The
player regains Drama Points in-session by giving in to their weakness and
creating drama. I totally got the idea for this after playing ICONS. FS is often about human frailty and players are notoriously frit of showing or acknowledging ANY weakness, so this is a gentle push.

Here are the quick-and-dirty descriptions of FS's virtues and sins.

The Seven Virtues

Virtue

Patron

Tasks

Questing

Paulus the Traveller

Investigating mysteries.

Loyalty

Lextius the Knight

Upholding a pledge.

Compassion

Amalthea the Healer

Aiding those in need.

Protection

Mantius the Soldier

Defending the faithful.

Justice

Maya the Scorned Woman

Punishing the guilty.

Wisdom

Horace the Learned Man

Learning something new.

Humility

Hombor the Beggar

Selfless acts of charity.

Discipline

Ven Lohji the Alien

Investigating occult mysteries.

The Seven Sins

Sin

Acts

Pride

Insisting on primacy; ignoring the
social order.

Greed

Extracting too much from others, be it
money or other goods. Stealing.

Lust

Overt seduction, lascivious excess,
miscegenation (xenophilia).

Envy

Acts designed to deny or take a
desired person or object from another.

Sloth

Failing to advance a Passion.

Wrath

Becoming angry or violent against
those weaker than thyself.

Oathbreaking

Choosing not to honour
agreements/contracts.

Technosophy

Relying on technology to do something
for you.

Characters
have three main traits: Body, Mind and Spirit. These traits act as
health tracks and limits - a character cannot have a skill rating higher than
their trait rating.

A
character's Body represents how much
damage they can take before falling unconscious. Health
is lost through physical conflict, with each point of damage removing one
point of health. See the Combat section for more details.

A
character's Mind is the measure of
their mental stability and their defence against the Darkness Between the
Stars. Stability is lost when the player comes across horrific situations
(grisly occult rituals, facing the Darkness Between the Stars and so on).
Players can also make mental attacks against one another, seeking to sow
confusion and uncertainty in their enemies through debate.

A
character's Spirit is their
worthiness, be it in the Pancreator's eyes or their own. Theurgic or Psychic characters need a strong soul
to control their abilities, while the ungifted may offer their Spirit points to
demons in unholy bargains. A character's convictionis lost when installing cyberwear, or engaging in spiritual combat.

Falling
to Zero

When
a character's trait falls to zero, they are temporarily taken out of play.

A
character with zeroBody is grievously wounded and
unconscious. They can recover through healing, be it chemical, technological or
mystical.

A
character with zero Mind is insane and must be locked up for their own good. Psychological healing is a limited art in the
Known Worlds; instead, many go on quests to recover their minds, exploring
their history in order to recover their personality.

A
character with zero Spirit no longerabides
by their own morality; instead they act as they please. A character must either
return to their path through spiritual acts, or choose an alternative,
such as soul death through
transhumanism, or demon worship.

Stats work like in Dr. Who: the actual stat number is reduced, which has a knock-on effect on taking tests. Body works fine, and Mind is generally OK (not sure of the PVP thing, but as PVP is a big part of the game I guess I'll have to work something out. Spirit...sucks. I have no idea how to work this one yet, although I do like the idea of selling soul like a certain Patchwork Prince).

Combat is sketched out but basically runs like this: a character's total health is their Body + any armour rating (armour is extra health). If all the armour points are used up, its effectiveness in subsequent battles is 1/2 total until repaired and is halved again every time it's used up.

Energy shields protect against a range of damage values for X many hits.

Sunday, 1 January 2012

This is the X-Power Shock Blaster from Simba. While everyone's ooh-ing and ah-ing over Nerf guns, Simba snuck out this freaking bolt pistol lookielike

And you see that open bullet chamber? That's right; once the dart's fired you cock it again and the freaking shell casing tinkles onto the ground.

That's cool.

OK, so it's not what you's want in a forest shooting match, but in a closed social environment it just looks funky. Plus, spent cartridges are a storytelling device. They say 'there was a fight here' without having to do messy special effects and make someone lie still for too long.

I picked it up in Toymaster for £12, down from £16. It isn't coming up any more, but Amazon and other places have them.

So there I am, lying in bed at grannies' house and pondering a Christmas Mass Effect game.

And my brain decides that's pretty dull and switches track.

"You know what?" it says. "You should dump as many stats as possible and make Fading Suns about Passions. Flagged ideas that form characters, with skills and stats coming second/last.

"Start each character off with a Destiny, a really big goal the player/character has. Link progress towards this goal with Wyrd point recovery. Then give them Passions - anything from political ambitions to love stories - and let them gain XP for achieving those.

"You could throw in a Drama point economy, like in Cinematic Unisystem. Give each character a virtue and a vice, straight out of the Universal Church's seven virtues/vices and link them to Drama points; they can recover DPs if they succumb to their vices and can spend DPs for a bonus if their virtue helps them. or something. I'm sure you'll figure out the details."

I love and hate my brain sometimes. Never did finish off the Mass Effect plot, either.